


Try Again

by heathicorn



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:04:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heathicorn/pseuds/heathicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompted by the 'don't think about danny' playlist I made -- for the AU where Cliff doesn't come back to the holiday party and Mindy goes home alone, then has to deal with her growing realization that she maybe definitely has feelings of a non-platonic nature for Danny Castellano.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Almost is Never Enough

“Well pigeon, I guess it's just me and you now.”

The way her night's been going, standing out in the cold without a jacket and talking to a pigeon is the least bizarre decision Mindy has made all evening. Somewhere between losing Cliff at the office holiday party and downing two bottles worth of contraband bra-wine, she surrendered any hope of luring a beautiful man out onto the balcony with her for illicit intra-office makeouts.

“You know, Nora Ephron never warned me--” she begins, but her pigeon companion abandons her mid-sentence. She shrugs and mutters, “Yep, right. I'm sure you have a pigeon girlfriend to hang out with right now.”

Mindy turns around and heaves a sigh, the cold biting through her thin dress. As she reenters the office, she catches a glimpse of Danny trying to reassemble his disheveled Monticello. His brows are screwed up into a crease of frustration, his hands fumbling with the sloppy remains of Jeremy's demolition, and he's swearing under his breath. Her mind flutters back to Danny dancing a frighteningly well-choreographed routine for her, complete with sensual chin caresses and self-conscious grins. There's something strangely endearing about it all, despite the fact that only ten minutes earlier he refused her clearly coded offer to go make out. Mindy feels something catch in her chest, like a dim sign reading ' _oh no'_ flickering on inside her.

“I'm gonna go,” she announces, more to herself than Danny, though he turns in surprise upon hearing her voice.

“You sure?”

She nods, suddenly feeling claustrophobic in the small room, alone with Danny again. It's like the air is slowly being sucked out and she can't stop staring at him. If she's thinking rationally, she knows she's drunk and can probably write off the urge to lick the frosting off his fingers as a byproduct of too much alcohol and an admittedly unhealthy love of sugar. But she's not thinking rationally and her inhibitions are down and something is telling her it's _not_ just too much alcohol and a love of sugar.

“Yeah, I'm feeling weird.” She's being honest, though neglecting a few key details as to why she's feeling weird, most of which have to do with very vivid imaginings of Danny and gingerbread houses and dancing.

“Let me get you a cab,” he says, wiping his frosting-coated hands on his jeans and grabbing his coat. He shepherds her through the dwindling crowds of party-goers in their office, and perhaps for the first time in a long time she's acutely aware of his hand guiding her by the small of her back.

They're silent all the way to the elevator, and only when the doors close does Mindy murmur, “You smell like sugar.” She keeps her eyes fixed on the doors but can feel Danny looking at her. “Poor Monticello. Destroyed before it even had a chance to really make its debut.”

“I thought there'd be time later, didn't realize it would get ruined. I can fix it up and try again.” His voice is quiet.

“Yeah well...it's kind of too late now.”

For a brief moment Mindy feels like they're not talking about gingerbread Monticello, but chalks it up to her increasing buzz and the Aaliyah lyrics still floating around in her head.

When the cab pulls up outside, Danny opens the door for her and helps her in, handing her the purse she didn't realize she had forgotten. He gives the driver her address, then bends down and places a lingering kiss on her cheek. Mindy's feeling light-headed and it's probably the wine but maybe it's also all the things Danny remembers about her or the smell of his cologne and frosting-coated fingertips as he closes the door. Either way, she feels like she's tumbling towards something she's altogether unprepared for as she watches him wave goodbye.

She makes herself promise that as the cab pulls away she wont look back to see if he's still there, but the mere fact that she has to think that at all is worrying. She touches the spot on her cheek where Danny kissed her and wonders why it feels like she's burning.

It's nearly midnight when the cab drops Mindy at her building. She pushes the door to her apartment open and throws her purse on the floor, kicking off her heels and slumping onto her couch in one motion of surrender. She buries her face into the throw pillows and groans, “This is bad.”

Her phone buzzes, a text from Danny reading, **'you make it home ok?'**

She stares at it indignantly, throws it against the side of the couch and nearly gets hit in the face as it bounces back. "Hey!" she snaps, having only just barely managed to dodge it in time.

"What's it to you?" she mutters at Danny's message, tugging her coat over her head and rolling her eyes. The more she thinks about it, the more her woozy affection turns into bitterness.

 **"yes thx u good luck w ur gingerbred cookies"** she texts back, only half aware of what she's typing as she grabs her laptop and skims through her email and facebook. She settles on her itunes and starts dragging songs into a playlist, absentmindedly singing "if at first you don't succeed..." while she hovers over a one direction song.

"Fuck it who cares if they're practically infants they're catchy as hell and I love them. I love them! Fight me," she says to no one in particular, double-clicking on the song and beaming at her monitor.

Mindy spends the rest of the night drunkenly curating a playlist she ultimately frowns at and titles "don't think about danny" before passing out on her couch to the sound of Beyonce singing her to sleep.

\---

When Mindy wakes up she's on the floor of her living room with a splitting headache and wearing the same clothes she wore last night to the Christmas party.

Maybe it's because she downed two bottles of bra wine or because it was too embarrassing to admit at the time, but in the unforgiving light of morning there's no denying something definitely happened between her and Danny last night. She has the distinct feeling that they almost kissed, and then when she tried to _really_ make it happen he shot her down. As the memories come rushing back she feels her face burning with the second wave of embarrassment that is even harder to stomach with a hefty hangover.

"God," she groans, bracing herself against the couch. "Did I seriously..." she massages her neck and fumbles around for her phone. She sees the message from Danny and nods. “Leave it to me to get drunk and try to make out with Danny.”

It's only when she glances at the clock that she realizes she's over an hour late for work and starts swearing. She grabs her purse, tugs on the nearest pair of boots and a coat and flies out the door.

As she walks into the office she hears Morgan's low laugh as he yells, “Whoa, Dr. L doing the walk of shame!”

Mindy raises a hand to silence him and glares.

“Okay first of all—while that is flattering because it implies I had sex last night, that is untrue and thus very hurtful. Secondly, I went home alone and overslept, how dare you.”

Morgan nods and points to a supply closet and simply walks away as Mindy says, “Yeah, think about that.”

Betsy's smiling brightly at Mindy and stands to take her coat, gazing admiringly at the green dress in question.

“Dr. Lahiri, I thought that dress was lovely last night and it looks just as nice this morning. But you know you could have asked me to set an alarm for you or brought you a change of clothes, you know I have some dresses—”

Mindy sighs and pats Betsy on the shoulder. “Thank you Betsy, that's...very sweet, but no, no thank you.”

It's then that Danny walks in, clipboard in hand and glasses perched low on the bridge of his nose. Mindy feels her heart leap and it makes her want to run out the door, because _who is she_ that Danny of all people is having this sort of impact on her?

He looks her up and down and his mouth twitches into a brief smile before he catches himself, sets the clipboard down and gestures to her.

“You doin' okay?”

Mindy just nods and walks past him to get to her office, trying not to make eye contact. She feels like every second she stares at him it gets harder and harder to deny how much she actually wanted to make out with him instead of Cliff last night.

“Hey,” he says, trailing after her, catching the door right before it closes in his face. “Hey, you sure? You seem a little...”

“What? I seem a little what, Danny?” Mindy's searching through stacks of paper for god-knows-what, mostly struggling to find excuses not to look him in the eyes.

“...nothing, I guess. It's just you left really abruptly last night, and I guess I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Alright? I'm great. I'm awesome. I'm rocking the same dress two days in a row, the old guy with four teeth who sits next to me on the subway whenever I'm late to work told me I look like his future ex-wife, and I found 32 cents in my coat pocket on my way up the stairs, so, yeah, I think you could say I'm a little more than alright.”

After a brief silence Mindy finally surrenders and looks up at Danny. She immediately regrets it because the way he's looking at her makes her feel like she's not even remotely alright, and probably never will be because whenever she looks at him from now on she's going to hear Aaliyah on a loop and imagine dragging him out onto a snowy balcony by his shirt collar.

“So...we're good?” he says tentatively, and she can't help feeling like he's trying very hard to brush off the whole 'we-almost-made-out' thing.

“Yep. Never better.”

Danny stares at her for what feels like an eternity before quietly saying, “Well alright,” and leaving her office. As the door closes behind him, she shakes her head and mutters, “I am so screwed.”


	2. I Choose You

After several days of dancing around each other, of avoiding Danny in the break-room and purposefully ignoring his texts, Mindy is fully convinced this gnawing feeling of infatuation isn't going away. Quite the opposite—it's getting worse. She can feel her eyes searching for him, only to dart away as soon as they catch him leaning against a counter or skimming a newspaper. She's had the drunken mix she made on an unsettling repeat, and calls Gwen to confess her concern.

“I think I might think Danny's hot.”

She can hear Gwen laughing warmly on the other end, then catching herself and trying to sound composed.

“Is this a new development? I mean, I thought we were calling him the handsome jerk for a reason.”

“Well, that was before we became friends. Now, he's my friend...and I also might happen think he's strangely attractive and a good dancer—”

“But he's so...”

“Gwen, you know this is killing me.”

“Oh honey,” Gwen says, clearly enjoying this too much for Mindy's comfort.

“Why did this have to happen to me?”

“So...you want to jump him, huh?” Gwen asks, though the slight uptick at the end of her sentence barely sounds like a question.

“No, I—it's just that...maybe I'm coming to terms with the fact that Danny isn't altogether unappealing...in that way, at least not as much as I thought initially? Maybe I'm just recognizing he's got some game. You know, credit where credit is due.”

“And we're talking about Danny, as in Danny Castellano? The same Danny who literally a week ago you referred to as 'an Italian version of Oscar the Grouch'. In human form. He has game? Oscar the Grouch has game?”

Mindy buries her face in her hands.

“Oscar does have a certain je ne sais quoi about him, Gwen! And you know I was joking, and exaggerating, and he'd had a rough morning, Morgan had set the microwave on fire—”

“Oh my god, you're actually getting defensive about him. You don't just think he's attractive, you have _feelings_ for him. This is amazing.”

Simply hearing those words from Gwen sends her into a panic, because now it's out there—it's spoken to the universe that she harbors feelings that are far from platonic for her coworker and sort-of-best-friend and what is she supposed to do with that? How is she supposed to look him in the eye after he totally rejected her offer to make out with him, no questions asked? Especially given that _now_ she's convinced she actually might have something like an embarrassing crush on him?

“No—no, I can't. And he doesn't see me that way! I told you, he straight up rejected me at the Christmas party.”

“About that, it doesn't really sound like an outright rejection though? I mean, I've seen the way he looks at you. That's not zero-interest. He must have had his reasons?”

“Whose team are you on, here?”

Gwen laughs affectionately.

“Yours, always! I'm just saying...”

Mindy repeats, “He doesn't.”

“Mindy, this is a _good_ thing.”

But it doesn't feel like a good thing. It feels dangerous and frightening, because she actually _cares_ about Danny, she likes Danny, she trusts him and relies on him and— _oh god, this is bad._

“Nope, I love you but you're wrong on this one. We're just friends, and I like it that way.”

Although she had hoped talking to Gwen would make her more confident that she and Danny would be fine, Mindy feels certain that she is in no way prepared to deal with anything that comes along with being attracted to Danny. The only thing she can do is deny it, ignore it, and pretend like none of it ever happened if she wants to be able to look Danny in the eye and not imagine him in varying states of undress.

“Right, well, thanks Gwen!”

“But Mindy—wait, don't hang up on—”

Before Gwen can finish yelling to Mindy, the phone is already silenced and in her dresser. She crawls into her bed and buries herself under the covers, trying desperately to un-hear Gwen's resounding 'you have feelings for him' echoing in her head.

\----

When she wakes up, sun is streaming through the curtains and there is a steady knocking at her door. Mindy groans and reaches for her phone, only to remember it's still buried in her drawer of clothes. The knocking resumes and she shouts, “Just a minute!”

Slowly crawling out of bed, Mindy grabs a fluffy robe and tugs it on as she makes her way to the door. She's wracking her brain to remember who she might be expecting this early on a Saturday morning but is coming up empty. When she opens the door, Danny's standing there with a warm smile and a brown paper bag.

She's so startled to see him she momentarily forgets she's still in her pajamas and her hair probably looks like she survived a very violent pillow fight.

“Um, what are you....” her eyes flicker between the bag in Danny's hand and his wind-tousled hair. Who even looks like that without trying? It's downright offensive and she's already annoyed.

“You weren't answering my calls, so I figured I'd just stop by.”

Mindy's mystified.

“What happened? Is something wrong?” she tugs her robe closer to her chest.

“No...it was my turn to buy Friday breakfast yesterday, but you didn't show up so I figured I'd make up for it today?”

Mindy was so busy trying to avoid thinking about Danny at all that she had completely forgotten their fairly new ritual of alternating buying each other breakfast on Fridays, something she truly loved, feelings and confusion aside. She felt guilty for having avoided him, and self-conscious with him standing on her doorstep now. She was a mess—both physically and emotionally, perhaps more the latter if that was even possible, and the last person she wanted to see her like this was Danny.

“You can't just show up at my apartment, Danny.” She's surprised by the harshness in her voice, and it seems to have the same impact on Danny, because he raises a brow and looks stung.

“Why not? I've done it before, and you do that all the time to me? Besides, you never had a problem with it in the past—”  
“Well I do now!” she says hastily, offering a constrained smile to her neighbor as he gives them a passing curious glance on his way to the stairs.

“Why?” Danny's not budging, doesn't even flinch. It's like he's rooting his feet to the welcome mat at her door, making a tacit declaration— _I'm not going anywhere. You'll have to make me._

“Because—” she pauses, flailing her arms. “Because we...almost kissed, and now it's weird! It was....”

Danny's watching her carefully now, his eyes narrowed.

“It was a mistake.” She says the last word like a test on her lips, not so much for him, but for herself; she's not convinced she means it.

There's a flash of what looks like hurt on Danny's face, but it's gone as quickly as it appeared. He swallows hard and breaks her gaze, his whole posture shifting. If she's being honest with herself, he looks crushed. And she feels pretty much the same.

“Well, I'm sorry about that. The last thing I wanted was to make you uncomfortable. I guess it's a good thing we didn't then.”

Mindy's having a hard time finding the words, which is a big deal for her, especially when it comes to Danny.

“You know what, nevermind. This was a dumb idea. I won't drop in on you again like this.” He turns to leave, but pauses, pivoting to face her again. “Wait, just...please take the bagels. They're from that place you pretended to hate because you know it's my favorite, but I can't stand it when you eat those sponges you call bagels from Panera, they're terrible.”

He stands there, arm extended and waiting for her to claim the bag. They're stuck in that stillness for a moment, because Mindy realizes as soon as she takes the bag he'll leave, and she's suddenly not sure if she can live with the idea that he might not come back.

“Please,” he repeats.

She complies, taking the bag and feeling something inside of her shrink as he turns and leaves her standing alone in her doorway with an armful of New York's best bagels and the distinct feeling that she'll never have an appetite again.  
  


\---

They don't talk for a week.

It's the longest she's ever gone without talking to Danny, and his absence is decidedly felt. She takes for granted all the little texts and brief run-ins they have, their work routines that fall out of use. It's strange that she feels herself missing the sound of his laugh, or the way he sometimes just sits in silence with her in the kitchen while she makes her third cup of coffee. All of that effortless comfort and understanding is missing and she feels adrift, and there's no amount of coaxing from Betsy and Jeremy and Morgan that can fix things between her and Danny. She knows it has to come from the two of them, but he left for Christmas and hasn't returned, and she's losing her nerve.

Mindy doesn't expect him to come to her New Years Eve party. She's not even sure she really wants him there, but she can't shake the memory of the promise Danny made to her after she broke off her engagement to Casey. He told her he would be by her side at midnight, that she wouldn't have to think about how a few short months ago she would have already be married when the clock struck 12. Danny said he'd hand her a drink and kiss her cheek, and she would forget about all of it. She believed him.

But the night is wearing on and she's alone in a sea of people and feels swallowed by the unshakable void of his absence. She reassures Betsy she's fine, tells Morgan she absolutely will not need his services as a Midnight-Kiss-Stand-In. Everyone seems happy and excited and she's glad—but the one person she wants to share it with isn't there, and it's suffocating.

“Hey Betsy, I just need a minute, can you make sure Morgan doesn't ask Tamra and Ray Ron about threeways for like ten minutes?”

Betsy nods and Mindy ducks into her bedroom, sitting on the edge of her bed with a hefty sigh.

“Alone again,” she says, adjusting her sparkling pink '2014' headband. “Really outdid yourself this year.”

The door to her room creaks open, and Danny pokes his head in. Mindy's too startled to say anything other than, “You!”

Danny smiles vaguely, taking that as his invitation to enter. He shuts the door behind him and nods to her.

“Were you talking to yourself?”

“No,” she mutters defensively, then relenting. “Yes...what are you doing here?”

“Unless I'm mistaken, I made you a promise.”

He seems pleased at the obvious happiness on her face, and Mindy's a little breathless, heart picking up with the surprise of seeing him. She's not sure what to say—she can't shake the feeling that at any moment he'll remember their last conversation and storm out. Just seeing him in her apartment already feels like a victory she's not willing to surrender.  
“So I had some time to think,” he says softly, clearing his throat. “About what you said about us, about what happened—or didn't happen, at the Christmas party. About it being a mistake.”

Mindy stiffens, the word 'mistake' hits her harder than she expects. It feels heavy, wrong. She just nods, too afraid to speak for fear of spooking him.

“Well, I've decided you're wrong.”

The rush of relief is so immediate that she can't stop herself from smiling.

“Oh?” she manages, waiting for him to elaborate.

“I don't think it was a mistake, but I also don't understand why you thought that in the first place.”

“What do you mean?” Mindy frowns, slowly rising from the bed.

“I mean...” he's struggling, but determined. “Am I imagining that you wanted to kiss me?”

“No,” she says far more quickly than she'd like, the reply tumbling out before she can stop herself.

“No, I'm not imagining it? Or no, you didn't want to kiss me?”

Mindy rolls her eyes.

“No, you're not imagining it.”

“Okay, well then why did you get so upset with me? Why did you act like you wished we'd never even come close to kissing? Why call it a mistake?”

Mindy can feel the familiar flush of embarrassment burning across her cheeks as the memory of that night slowly returns to her.

“Because you...” she tries to ignore the humiliation of the memory. “You rejected me.”  
“Rejected you?” Danny looks utterly perplexed.  
“Uh, yeah? When I asked if you wanted to get some air? After everything I'd told you about how that was basically code for 'let's make out'? And it made me feel like I was some weirdo stalker for thinking maybe you would have liked it too.”  
“But I _would_ have liked it!”  
“You certainly have a strange way of showing it, Danny! You were more interested in freaking gingerbread Monticello than me!”  
Danny gives an exasperated laugh.

“To be fair, I put a lot of work into—no, you know what? You're right, I reacted poorly. But it's only because I didn't want to be a replacement, Mindy. I didn't want to be your consolation prize because Cliff wasn't around, and you were under the influence of your boob wine, and lonely. I wanted—no, I _want_ —”

Mindy's staring at him and he seems uncharacteristically open, like he's actually saying what he means and not holding anything back. It's amazing and terrifying and _so attractive_ , but she's trying to remain composed and let him get it all out, because god knows how long it's taken them to get to this point.

“I want to be the guy you do the weird, sexy song and dance for. I want to do that for you too—hell, I already have. I want to be the guy who knows that when you want to kiss him, it's because it's me, not just because I happen to be there. I don't want to be the rebound from Casey, or Cliff, or any other guy. I want to make you laugh, I want to be the one you can rely on—”

  
“Danny,” she gently interrupts, smiling widely. “You already are that guy. That guy you just described? Is _literally you_. You are the only person who I trust to buy me bagels, the only person who asks me about my favorite tv shows even though I know you hate every single one of them. Yes, at the time, it was a lot of things that made me want to kiss you, and to be fair, I was a little—a lot tipsy, so in retrospect, yeah, it might not have been the best timing. But now? I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's because it's you. Because for some inexplicable reason, you're the only person who really gets me and I'm starting to think I'm the only person who really gets you. Okay?”

The voices in her living room are growing louder. The ball is dropping in Times' Square and Mindy can't focus on anything but the way Danny's eyes are tracing her lips.

"You mean that? You're not just saying that because it's New Years Eve and you're lonely?"

Mindy rolls her eyes.

"God Danny, if I was that lonely and just wanted a warm body to make out with Morgan is in the other room with his pants off, literally, I asked him not to wear the tearaway pants but he did it anyway."

Danny chuckles.

"I know, I saw. He has really white thighs."

"Gross," Mindy says under her breath.

They're cracking the 30 second mark and people are starting to count down. Danny takes a step forward, closing the gap between them.

"Hey," he says quietly, a tentative smile at his lips. "I was gonna go get a breath of fresh air?"

A genuine, relieved, elated laugh escapes from Mindy and she nods with approval.

"You know, that sounds like a great idea. Why didn't I think of that?"

Danny doesn't wait to make it outside. He pulls her toward him and kisses her with all of the withheld need they had denied for countless weeks and months. His hands are in her hair and she's smiling into his mouth, fingertips skimming along his tie, his collar, his neck. They break apart in flustered giggles, and look into each other's eyes to see if there's any lingering doubts about this being a good idea. Mindy sees nothing in Danny but the expression of a man parched by a desert who just took his first sip of water. She touches his cheek and he laughs nervously, taking her hand into his own.

Mindy tugs him out onto the fire escape, and as the party in her apartment choruses "Happy New Year!" she's kissing Danny like they're the only people left in New York City and she's prepared to spend the entire new year making up for lost time.

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't going to be that long, but I really wanted to post the mix that this was based on and that's been done for a couple days so I will finish this fic asap :D


End file.
